Critical crypto bug leaves Linux, hundreds of apps open to eavesdropping

  • 4 March 2014
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Hundreds of open-source packages, including the Red Hat, Ubuntu, and Debian distributions of Linux, are susceptible to attacks that circumvent the most widely used technology to prevent eavesdropping on the Internet, thanks to an extremely critical vulnerability in a widely used cryptographic code library.
The bug in the GnuTLS library makes it trivial for attackers to bypass secure sockets layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) protections available on websites that depend on the open-source package. Initial estimates included in Internet discussions such as this one indicate more than 200 different operating systems or applications rely on GnuTLS to implement crucial SSL and TLS operations, but it wouldn't be surprising if the actual number is much higher. Web applications, e-mail programs, and other code that use the library are vulnerable to exploits that allow attackers monitoring connections to silently decode encrypted traffic passing between end users and servers.
The bug is the result of commands in a section of the GnuTLS code that verify the authenticity of TLS certificates, which are often known simply as X509 certificates. The coding error, which may have been present in the code since 2005, causes critical verification checks to be terminated, drawing ironic parallels to the extremely critical "goto fail" flaw that for months put users of Apple's iOS and OS X operating systems at risk of surreptitious eavesdropping attacks. Apple developers have since patched the bug.
"It was discovered that GnuTLS did not correctly handle certain errors that could occur during the verification of an X.509 certificate, causing it to incorrectly report a successful verification," an advisory issued by Red Hat warned. "An attacker could use this flaw to create a specially crafted certificate that could be accepted by GnuTLS as valid for a site chosen by the attacker."
GnuTLS developers published this bare-bone advisory that urges all users to upgrade to version 3.2.12. The flaw, formally indexed as CVE-2014-0092, is described by a GnuTLS developer as "an important (and at the same time embarrassing) bug discovered during an audit for Red Hat."
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Can Webroot for Linux systems be far behind? Being open-sourced, could it be based in a fashion like the mobile Webroot is, shicking the individual apps?
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The following article is a update on Crypto bug
 
(LibreSSL crypto library leaps from OpenBSD to Linux, OS X, more)
 
By:By Neil McAllister, 12 Jul 2014
 
The OpenBSD project has released the first portable version of LibreSSL, the team's OpenSSL fork – meaning it can be built for operating systems other than OpenBSD.
The LibreSSL project, which aims to clean up the buggy and inscrutable OpenSSL code, was founded about two months ago by a group of OpenBSD developers, so it only makes sense that getting it running on that OS would be their priority.
http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ad?iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x250%7C300x600&tile=3&c=33U8FBhqwQrMoAAGIe8xkAAAGY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26unitname%3Dwww_top_mpu%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0With the release of LibreSSL 2.0.0 on Friday, however, many of the dependencies on OpenBSD have been removed and the library can now be built for various flavors of Linux, Solaris, OS X, and FreeBSD.
 
The Register/ Full Read Here/http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/12/libressl_portable/

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